SUNDANCE ’08! One Spy’s Breathless Report on DIARY OF THE DEAD And HAMLET 2!

Hey, everyone. ”Moriarty” here.
Normally I’d at least throw in a few paragraph breaks, but I like the way this guy’s one solid paragraph sort of imparts his enthusiasm for the entire experience. Like he just couldn’t wait to tell us.
And I love his nickname. Made me laugh. Because I am evidently thirteen years old.
Check it out:

Hey there fellow geeks, Ah, January and once again there is actually a cool reason to live in Salt Lake City. Every year I try to hit up a movie or two from the Sundance festival, and this year I saw a couple of pretty good ones. So let us get right into it. First, I caught a screening of George A Romero's Diary of the Dead. It would be impossible to not want to think it's Cloverfield with zombies, but really DOTD has very little in common with Cloverfield other than the cameraman constantly saying things like "I'm just going to keep on filming so someone can see what REALLY happened". The plot is pretty simple with Diary of the Dead, some students are making a movie for their class at Pitt University, and the zombie apocalypse goes down. Well, most of the crew wants to find their loved ones and they start off in a RV to do so. From there everything goes down the crapper. But do you care about the story or the kills. Before the movie started, I said to my brother who went with me, "As long as there are three good zombie kills, then I'll be happy." Well, there are more than three and I don't want to spoil any of them, but let me say this: Amish zombie warriors should be in every zombie movie ever made from now on. As a hu! ge hater of Romero's Land of the Dead, which I looked forward to from conception, I was wary that he would continue on his downward trajectory. Well, fellow haters, I would say that Diary of the Dead is a huge step up from Land of the Dead. Going back to a smaller budget and a smaller story was a wise choice, and I say that I would gladly pay to see the sequel. And now for something completely different, Hamlet 2. I bought my tickets for this one well before it's large payday, and it was on the strength of one Mr. Steve Coogan. I've been a fan since 24 Hour Party People and enjoyed his funny parody of himself in both Coffee and Cigarettes and Tristram Shandy. Mr. Coogan, I must say, pretty much rules in Hamlet 2. His American accent is goofy and his haircut is almost as lame as Javier Bardems, but hopefully he will break out in the USA with this role. He plays a failed commercial actor named Dana Marschz who now teaches drama in Tuscon, AZ. He writes plays based on recent films (Max Fisher would be jealous of his "Erin Brockovich".) After getting a much larger class because of budget cuts, then finding out his own class will be part of the same budget cuts next semester, he decides to write his own original work, "Hamlet 2". With a time traveling Hamlet trying to fix all the stuff that happened in the original, his play end! s up turning into quite the controversy. Once again, I don't really want to spoil too much, but my sides ached as they put on the play and did their musical numbers, including the awesome "Hard Rockin Sexy Jesus"(this may not be the exact name, but I was laughing too hard to remember it perfectly). Most of the performances in the flick are strong, including Catherine Keener as Dana's wife and Elisabeth Shue as herself. SNL's Amy Poehler pretty much steals every scene she's in as an ACLU lawyer who is helping Dana make sure his play is seen. The kids in the drama class are pretty good as well, but Phoebe Strole is a stand-out as the drama nerd/racist. Anyway, I would say if you are a fan of Coogan's or like strange, quirky comedies about social freaks, check this one out when it's released. Thanks fellas, and if you use this, call me taintyourwagon.

This line killed me- One of the great running gags in Hamlet 2. Agree it was hysterical, particularly the musical numbers (BTW it's "Rock Me, Sexy Jesus"). Steve Coogan nails the lead character with his child-like optimism and innocence. Poehler is great as an ACLU lawyer with no scruples (kinda redundant, there). Pretty damn funny overall- will definitely see it again in wide release-

It gets such a hard time. I think it's unfair to judge Romero by his previous works. When he made Dawn and Night it was a completely different time. Society as a whole was different back in the 60's and 70's. That's not to say Land was a classic. It was a passable zombie flick. One of the things I loved, which everybody hated, was the cartoonish element Romero injected into the movie. The world and characters of Land were like they came straight out of a comic book. I thought that was cool. It was a change of pace, as it came out at a time when movies started this whole "realistic" thing, which at times I find just boring and lacking creative spunk!

but really, saying you liked Land of the Dead is like saying you liked Robocop 3. It was fucking TERRIBLE in every way a movie can be terrible. The writing was bad, the acting was bad, the music was bad, the cinematography was bad, the characters were unbelievable stereotypes. LotD had the production values of a Canadian made-for-tv movie. This fucking guy had 2 decades to come up with another sequel and this was it? People should go to prison for making movies like LotD.

Cmon' man. That's a bit harsh. I can understand where you're coming from but it wasn't THAT bad. It's not really one of those movies where you can dissect the different elements and present a thesis on it. It's a zombie movie! Not a great one! But still...

Why do people always malign Day of the Dead? It's fucking awesome, easily my favorite, if not the best or most important of the series. Night and Dawn were seminal but Day is still a great zombie flick.

Romero gets to do whatever he wants with a Zombie movie, including delivering an understated Zombie movie. Maybe you don't agree, but if you're right, than he should at least be getting royalties from every other filmmaker who makes a Zombie movie.

Land of the Dead was in fact a trainwreck, and even GAR admits it (I believe he even cited the fuckfest of studio interference on that flick as a principal reason for going "indie" on Diary, but don't quote me on that). Just watched it again last night, and it doesn't even feel like a Romero movie at all, in my opinion,
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Zombie (as it was released here in the states) is definately a favorite of mine, but I don't think it holds a candle to NotLD or DawnotD or even Day of the Dead, and it's not even my flat favorite Fulci film ... The Beyond holds that honor.
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ALL '_______ II' movies shall hereby be dubbed "_______ II: The ______ening"

i did break that stuff into paragraphs, so I don't know what happened. But then again, I just posted only a subject so maybe I'm just an idiot. And how could I forget it was Rock me sexy jesus....and land of the dead still sucks but diary was surprisingly strong

How many people actually saw Day in the theatre when it was out? I did, and it friggin' rocked. Batshit-crazy insane doctor who discovers zombies may be more intelligent that we think? Underground military complex with close to the edge military psychos? How can you not love that film? Great gore... Good God, it is such an under-rated film. And Land...? Well, GAR could shit out a zombie movie and it'd still be gold. C'mon just having Asia Argento, John Leguizamo and Dennis Hopper in it, he should get 4 stars automatically. Looking forward to DOTD.